Located at the heart of East Asia and serving as the “entrance” point of Greater China, we all recognize that Hong Kong is a place where building technology is moving towards the “artificially intelligent” in accelerating momentum.

Actually, unlike many of our neighborhood such as Singapore, our building industry did not have any formal or commonly adopted definition of Intelligent Buildings (IBs) before 2000. Recalled that one of AIIB's objectives is to raise the public understanding and encourage industry adoption of the principles and technologies of IB, and therefore, a Technical Committee was formed and worked on developing a scientific and quantifiable IB index that could serve as a tool to access the level of IB in an understandable and practicable way.

Milestone

Overview

AIIB adopted the definition of IB as “An Intelligent Building is designed and constructed based on an appropriate selection of Quality Environment Modules to meet the User's Requirements by mapping with the appropriate building facilities to achieve a Long-Term Building Value”.

The IBI serves as our reference when assessing the level of IB of a building. By further elaborating the official definition of IBs, 9 Quality Environmental Modules are developed. Under each Module, a list of Elements affecting the performance of the Modules is also defined. To facilitate comparison of IBs by the building natures or needs of end-users, different weights are assigned to each Module according to the importance of it to the type of the building.

Highlights

The Draft IBI

To gather the ideas from the expertise all over Hong Kong , copies of The Draft IBI were distributed to various professional bodies to collect the comments of IBI from both academic and practical views. Besides, a number of press conference, seminars and technical workshops were held to introduce the concept of The Draft IBI to the industry.

AIIB was glad to received a number of comments from many prestigious organization, they included Buildings Department, Urban Renewal Authority, MTR Corporation, CLP Power, Hong Kong Hosing Authority, Hong Kong Housing Society, The Hong Kong Construction Association Limited, The Hong Kong Institute of Architects, The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, The Institution of Fire Engineers, Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies, Vocational Training Council, etc. Their invaluable comments were vital to the compile of the IBI 2.0.

The IBI 3.0

In 2003, the outbreak of SARS raised the concern of the general public over the aspect of health and sanitation. Therefore, Module 10, namely “Health and Sanitation” is added. Furthermore, by summarizing the feedback of IBI 2.0 from our auditors, assessors, and industry since its publication, the following items were revised in IBI 3.0:-

Add “Hotel” to and delete “Transportation Terminals” from the types of building

Add “Hotel” to and delete “Transportation Terminals” from the types of building

Revise the weighting of modules for better presentation

Quantify some elements to better facilitate IB audit

Remove elements that are difficult to collect information or data

Delete elements relating to “Contraction Process”

Revise Module 7 as “Safety and Structure Index”

Revise Module 8 as “Management Practice and Security Index”

All scores in each elements are revised to a maximum of 100

Indicate “building disciplines” and “means to find out information” in the ‘Remark' column for each particular element, if applicable

The revision made in IBI 3.0 does not only offer a higher degree of practicality and better presentation, but also demonstrates IBI developed by AIIB is capable to reflect the change of requirements of the building industry from time to time by introduction of new or deletion of obsolete Module(s).

In conclusion, the implementation of IBI is extremely successful over the years, and therefore, AIIB has received tremendous appreciation and encouragement from both local and overseas IB institutions.

Indeed, AIIB was invited to attend international events or seminars to deliver a technical presentation on how we use the IBI to conduct IB audit and interpret the result thus compiled. Those events included 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference in Tokyo, 2005 Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan Intelligent Building Construction and New Technology Symposium, etc.

AIIB is dedicated to develop the IBI by continuously and timely revision of the index. We would keep closely working with our international counterparts to bring Asia up to date on developments in relation to IBs, so as to maintain Hong Kong as the center of the Asian IB industry and to take a leading role in its development through Hong Kong's own IB technologies and expertise.

The ultimate objective of establishing the IBI is to benefit our society by encouraging the use of IB to provide a better and more comfortable environment for occupants, leading to a greatly improved working efficiency with the aid of modern information technology.

Development Of The Intelligent Building Index Manual (IBI)

Located at the heart of East Asia and serving as the “entrance” point of Greater China, we all recognize that Hong Kong is a place where building technology is moving towards the “artificially intelligent” in accelerating momentum.

Actually, unlike many of our neighborhood such as Singapore, our building industry did not have any formal or commonly adopted definition of Intelligent Buildings (IBs) before 2000. Recalled that one of AIIB's objectives is to raise the public understanding and encourage industry adoption of the principles and technologies of IB, and therefore, a Technical Committee was formed and worked on developing a scientific and quantifiable IB index that could serve as a tool to access the level of IB in an understandable and practicable way.

Milestone

Overview

AIIB adopted the definition of IB as “An Intelligent Building is designed and constructed based on an appropriate selection of Quality Environment Modules to meet the User's Requirements by mapping with the appropriate building facilities to achieve a Long-Term Building Value”.

The IBI serves as our reference when assessing the level of IB of a building. By further elaborating the official definition of IBs, 9 Quality Environmental Modules are developed. Under each Module, a list of Elements affecting the performance of the Modules is also defined. To facilitate comparison of IBs by the building natures or needs of end-users, different weights are assigned to each Module according to the importance of it to the type of the building.

Highlights

The Draft IBI

To gather the ideas from the expertise all over Hong Kong , copies of The Draft IBI were distributed to various professional bodies to collect the comments of IBI from both academic and practical views. Besides, a number of press conference, seminars and technical workshops were held to introduce the concept of The Draft IBI to the industry.

AIIB was glad to received a number of comments from many prestigious organization, they included Buildings Department, Urban Renewal Authority, MTR Corporation, CLP Power, Hong Kong Hosing Authority, Hong Kong Housing Society, The Hong Kong Construction Association Limited, The Hong Kong Institute of Architects, The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, The Institution of Fire Engineers, Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies, Vocational Training Council, etc. Their invaluable comments were vital to the compile of the IBI 2.0.

The IBI 3.0

In 2003, the outbreak of SARS raised the concern of the general public over the aspect of health and sanitation. Therefore, Module 10, namely “Health and Sanitation” is added. Furthermore, by summarizing the feedback of IBI 2.0 from our auditors, assessors, and industry since its publication, the following items were revised in IBI 3.0:-

Add “Hotel” to and delete “Transportation Terminals” from the types of building

Add “Hotel” to and delete “Transportation Terminals” from the types of building

Revise the weighting of modules for better presentation

Quantify some elements to better facilitate IB audit

Remove elements that are difficult to collect information or data

Delete elements relating to “Contraction Process”

Revise Module 7 as “Safety and Structure Index”

Revise Module 8 as “Management Practice and Security Index”

All scores in each elements are revised to a maximum of 100

Indicate “building disciplines” and “means to find out information” in the ‘Remark' column for each particular element, if applicable

The revision made in IBI 3.0 does not only offer a higher degree of practicality and better presentation, but also demonstrates IBI developed by AIIB is capable to reflect the change of requirements of the building industry from time to time by introduction of new or deletion of obsolete Module(s).

In conclusion, the implementation of IBI is extremely successful over the years, and therefore, AIIB has received tremendous appreciation and encouragement from both local and overseas IB institutions.

Indeed, AIIB was invited to attend international events or seminars to deliver a technical presentation on how we use the IBI to conduct IB audit and interpret the result thus compiled. Those events included 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference in Tokyo, 2005 Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan Intelligent Building Construction and New Technology Symposium, etc.

AIIB is dedicated to develop the IBI by continuously and timely revision of the index. We would keep closely working with our international counterparts to bring Asia up to date on developments in relation to IBs, so as to maintain Hong Kong as the center of the Asian IB industry and to take a leading role in its development through Hong Kong's own IB technologies and expertise.

The ultimate objective of establishing the IBI is to benefit our society by encouraging the use of IB to provide a better and more comfortable environment for occupants, leading to a greatly improved working efficiency with the aid of modern information technology.